Let’s face it relationships are hard work, there are good times and bad times and you constantly have to work at it to keep life exciting. Over time, you may start to see signs that make you question whether your relationship is going to last and those signs could indicate your relationship is really over for good.
There are some key signs -
1. Gut Feeling - your gut feeling tells you something isn’t right. You can’t seem to put your finger on it but you’re always feeling as though something is wrong. You don’t feel at ease and every attempt to create happy moments fall flat leaving you feeling dissatisfied with life.
2. Self-Sabotaging - you or your partner are self-sabotaging to escape the reality of unhappiness of the relationship by drinking, comfort eating, gambling, or drugs. If there are no other major stressor in your lives ie work, family etc then you need to look at your relationship to conclude whether it is what is causing your discontent with life.
3. No Quality Time - you’re spending less and less time together as a couple. You may have done many joint activities like long walks, movies, watching favourite TV shows, chatting for hours, hobbies, weekends away etc but now you either do them alone or prefer group social events
4. Partners’ Faults are Amplified - your partner’s faults overshadow their good traits and you’re starting to even dislike them as a person. Times together are often ending up in arguments, frustration, or resentment causing the bad times to outweigh the good times.
5. Poor Communication - you aren’t communicating and both of you seem very despondent. Your partner use to be the first person you would call whenever you had good news or bad as they were your best friend or confidante. You may feel neither of you have anything in common to talk about. Even when things annoy you, you don’t bother raising it as an issue anymore as you think “what’s the point”
6. No Future - when you think of your life ahead you don’t actually see your partner as part of your future. You don’t talk about things you can both look forward to or common goals you both aspire to. You can often think is this it?, Is this the best life is going to get.
7. Disconnected - as time goes by the connection has been lost with no intimacy or affection. You can actually feel more like flatmates than partners.
8. Values Misaligned - your values may be mismatched causing conflict in areas of fairness, integrity, honesty, work ethic, family etc realising that your values don’t align.
You may wonder if your relationship is really over, so put your hand on your heart and ask yourself if you have tried everything possible to make it work. If you think your relationship is worth saving, try counselling but be aware it takes two of you to want to make it work otherwise it may be time to call it quits and rebuild the life you deserve.
Author - Cheryl Duffy
Cheryl Duffy, Mediator, Divorce Coach & Author of The Divorce Tango